Thursday

Apr 16, 2020 at 11:26 AM

WASHINGTON – Days after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, his chief of staff got a call from an aide to Mike Pence asking if Inslee could meet with the vice president.

When Inslee’s office agreed Pence would fly to his state the next day, the aide had to run because Pence was talking to reporters and wanted to announce the trip in the next 30 seconds.

The eagerness of Pence, a former Indiana governor, to reach out to states' chief executives – including those who have gotten crosswise with the administration – was likewise apparent in a comment he made to Inslee.

The vice president's natural kinship with governors has helped him pull off the rare feat of pleasing both his boss and those his boss has attacked.

“He gets along with people, I think, much better than I do,” President Donald Trump said last week. “Mike can put up with things that – sometimes I say, `It’s amazing that he can put up with it.’ ”

Pence hasn’t always been able to deliver everything requested by governors, who have been frustrated by aspects of the federal government’s response to the biggest crisis most of them will ever face.

But Pence generally gets high marks for serving as a liaison.

It’s a role he’s embraced through regular conversations with governors in which he offers help navigating the bureaucracy and fields requests for more resources. Pence eases the tensions when they flare up.

“He’s been really helpful and engaged,” said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, one of the Democrats besides Inslee whom the president has criticized and said Pence shouldn’t deal with.

A 'friendly voice,' but can he deliver?

There are still plenty of frustrations with the federal government’s response.

Governors have complained of testing and equipment shortages. They’ve pushed for stronger implementation of a wartime powers act to increase production of ventilators, testing supplies and personal protective equipment. And they’ve repeatedly urged a more cohesive national strategy, including a centralized process of distributing the lifesaving supplies so states don't bid against each other and the federal government.

“There’s a kind of lack of coordination,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who heads the National Governors Association and who has not been shy about speaking out, told USA TODAY. “We’re improving the process, but that certainly is an issue.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, appealed directly to Pence for help, describing in a letter the state’s “crisis-level shortage” of equipment to protect health care workers and first responders.

Asked about the governor’s interactions with Pence, spokesman Conor Cahill said Polis appreciates the vice president’s “responsiveness and accessibility” but “remains concerned about the clarity and transparency around the timing and qualities of the lifesaving supplies.”

“A few weeks ago, the guidance seemed to be that states should get these materials themselves, which Colorado is actively pursuing,” Cahill said in an email last week. “And now the guidance seems to be shifting, but no one is certain.”

In fact, the next day Trump tweeted that he was sending 100 ventilators to the state, not because of Polis – who had complained that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had blocked a shipment of ventilators – but at the request of Cory Gardner, the state’s Republican senator who faces a difficult reelection.

“President Donald Trump is treating lifesaving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists,” the Denver Post wrote in an editorial.

Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said it’s not clear that Pence “has the authority ultimately to deliver on the things that are being promised by the White House.”

“We would like it if more of the promises that have been made at the federal level had been delivered upon,” Pritzker told USA TODAY. “I’m glad to have a friendly voice on the other end of the call in the vice president, and I do think that he is listening to the governors even if sometimes he isn’t able to fulfill our requests.”

Polls: States need more help from feds

Polls show much of the public agrees with many governors that the federal government should do more.

More than half the respondents to a Monmouth University poll said Washington isn’t doing enough to help states.

“Most Americans disagree with the Trump administration’s position that the federal government is a backup to the states,” pollster Patrick Murray said.

Pence has repeated a mantra that the administration's approach is "locally executed, state managed and federally supported."

And he’s leaned into the support role.

“He’s the one that organized and convinced everybody to have the governors so involved in the debate and the discussion,” Hogan said. “He has risen to the occasion. … I think he's done a really incredible job.”

A USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll found the public is more likely to have extremely positive or negative views of Trump’s performance and more moderate opinions of Pence's.

There is a notable difference among Democrats. Nearly one in four say they have a “great deal” or “fair amount of trust” in Pence to provide accurate information about coronavirus compared with 14% who say that about Trump.

Seventy-three percent of Democrats surveyed April 9-10 say they have “not very much” or no trust in Pence, and 84% say that about Trump.

Drawing on past experience

When Trump put Pence in charge of the administration’s Coronavirus Task Force in late February, the vice president noted that he was Indiana’s governor in 2014 when the first Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) case in the USA emerged – in Indiana. Pence said he learned from that the importance of partnerships between the different levels of governments and health authorities in responding to dangerous infectious diseases.

Pence did not mention another health crisis he’d dealt with as governor in 2015, the nation’s first HIV outbreak linked to the injection of oral painkillers. Studies in medical journals have said the outbreak could have been prevented if the state had acted faster in allowing clean-needle exchanges.

Examples of assistance

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo publicly thanked Pence for clearing hurdles with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so New York laboratories could do their own coronavirus testing. That dramatically increased testing capacity.

“I had asked Vice President Pence to go back to the federal powers and say, let's get FDA and CDC out of the mandatory approval business, break that federal bottleneck and let the states use their own laboratories,” Cuomo said in mid-March.

Likewise, Pence helped Washington state clear regulatory hurdles, so its health department could validate local labs.

“We were able to get our health lab director in direct contact with the person at the FDA, who had heard from the vice president that this was a priority,” said Postman, the Inslee aide.

When Pence’s home state was very short on test kits last month, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb reached out to his predecessor for help. After Pence connected Holcomb with the CDC director, the state got a boost to tide it over until kits could be produced locally.

“A few moments ago, I got off the phone with the vice president,” Holcomb said during one of his briefings in March. “He was just checking in … I was able to share with him what our concerns were.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, another Republican, said governors are used to dealing with the vice president, whose outreach started well before the coranavirus.

"Since I became governor, he's reached out on numerous occasions to me, just to see if I needed anything or if he could be of help," DeWine told USA TODAY.

During the health crisis, DeWine said, Pence has helped cut through red tape several times, including when Ohio was arranging how to continue feeding low-income students who were no longer able to get free meals at shuttered schools.

Constant calls

Pence has held an unprecedented number of calls with governors, according to Hogan. Group calls can last more than two hours.

“We’re interacting with governors every day, seven days a week,” Pence said at a briefing. “And we welcome that.”

During a call with all governors, Maine’s Janet Mills urged the administration not to forget about rural states. Pence told her he’d organize a call just for rural states to focus on their unique challenges, according to WABI-TV.

When Pence was asked at a White House briefing last week about Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s complaint that none of her seven requests to FEMA for supplies had been fulfilled, Pence said he had not spoken with Kelly about that.

“But I’ll reach out this evening, certainly,” he said.

The next day, Kelly, a Democrat, said Pence "assured me he would do everything he could" to meet the state's most urgent PPE needs.

“Lack of personal protection equipment continues to be a problem," she said at a news briefing. "But, I will say that Vice President Pence has been a thoughtful partner throughout this pandemic and has worked with us in good faith.”

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Contrast with Trump

The vice president’s solicitousness is a stark contrast with Trump’s frequent complaints that governors should be more appreciative of what the administration is doing for them.

When Inslee tweeted in March that the state and federal partnership to combat the coronavirus would be more successful “if the Trump administration stuck to the science and told the truth,” Trump called Inslee a snake who is “not a good governor.”

The president engaged in a nasty Twitter fight with Illinois' Pritzker before accusing him of not being able to do his job and “always complaining.” He’s traded insults with Cuomo and referred to Whitmer as “half-Whit.” Trump said all Michigan’s governor does is “sit there and blame the federal government” so Pence shouldn’t deal with her or Inslee.

“I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington. You're wasting your time with him. Don't call the woman in Michigan,’ ” Trump said at a White House briefing last month. “You know what I say? If they don't treat you right, I don't call.”

Pence, the president has said, is a “straight shooter” who quietly calls anyway.

Whitmer told USA TODAY Pence remains responsive.

“When I asked for a phone call, we get a phone call scheduled quickly,” she said.

Though there was some concern in Inslee’s office after Trump complained that governors weren’t sufficiently appreciative, there have been no signs of punishment, according to Inslee’s top aide.

“That’s not nothing. We know that sometimes the president doesn’t like it when people who work for him don’t follow his lead on these issues of tone and things,” Postman said.

Pence, he said, appears to be trying to show he can work in a bipartisan fashion with the governors, who are on the front lines of the crisis.

“And he's been able to balance that,” Postman said, “with whatever pressure he might or might not feel from his boss.”